I notice that an editorial in the Brisbane Courier Mail says that in making his remarks about Islam being evil and inhumane Pope Benedict XV1:

....was merely quoting a 14th-century emperor in a long, scholarly paper; and to apologise for doing so would be caving in to a new dark age of fear and bullying in which useful debate and dialogue are silenced for fear of overreactions and violence.

This strikes me as a suitable response:

Sean Leahy

Or this. Sure a point can be made about the Muslim street's reaction to the Pope sundering faith and reason. But little is being said about moderate or liberal Muslims by Catholic conservatives (eg., Cardinal Pell in Australia) who both condemn terrorism and say that the Islamists distort Islam. The conservatives are quite content to quote passages out of the Koran that justify violence against the infidel and remain silent about passages in the Bible, or the fundamentalists in their own religion.

That would provide the basis for dialogue they say they want, wouldn't it? And there's grounds for a dialogue as many Muslims believe that faith should be integral to reason and knowing. Moreover, they believe that ethics and morality should include both faith and science as a frame of reference. Doen't this overlap with the pope's criticism of the separation of faith and reason brought about by the Reformation with its rejection of reason and the Enlightenment with its rejection of faith. Isn't that grounds for dialogue?

Instead the conservative civilizational warriors continue to strengthen the central al-Qaeda narrative of a Crusader war against Islam with their strategy to keep the fires raging, rather than driving a wedge between al-Qaeda and the jihadist fringe and mainstream Muslims.